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Hitchcock's Unfinished film: The Key to Reserva

Submitted by rob on Fri, 04/29/2011 - 00:00

If you're a fan of classic cinema, in particular the catalogue of Alfred Hitchcock, you will enjoy this short film. The conceit of this project is that in 2007, filmmaker Martin Scorsese has discovered three pages of of an un-flimed Alfred Hitchcock script titled The Key to Reserva . In the interest of film preservation and experimentation, Scorsese has elected to film these pages as he believed Hitchcock would have. This story is of course untrue. There are no such pages and in fact, this entire short film is an elaborate commercial that hawks wine. However, the idea behind this project is brilliant. Scorsese directing as Hitchcock would be something fans of both would line up for. It seems as though, Scorsese has scratched his Hitchcock itch with the release of his (heavily inspired by Hitchcock) film, Shutter Island.

This short is not only a love letter to the films of a master, but is also extremely funny. It's filled with humor and references to other Hitchcock films [North By Northwest, Vertigo, The Birds, Rear Window, and of course Psycho]. We also get a title sequence heavily inspired by Saul Bass's work with the master, as well as Bernard Herrmann's score to North By Northwest. It's a short cinematic gem that is fun to watch and is also sadly too short. I'm not usually an advocate of commercialism, but if more commercials were like this one, I might not fast forward through them when I watch cable.

If the film isn't still embedded, you can find it HERE. This was a hard one to find for embedding purposes, as every YouTube iteration has had the sound removed. I think after this, I might relax with a glass of twelve year old scotch and watch To Catch a Thief. Excuse me.